Surviving & Learning
Table of Contents
Primary Item (H2)
from your dan­ger­ous deeds.

Sessions Survived

Your pro­gres­sion is defined by your ses­sions sur­vived. Track this on your char­ac­ter record sheet. Ses­sions sur­vived is an impor­tant pre­req­ui­site for virtues and issues.

XP & Learning

Earn expe­ri­ence (XP) for your accom­plish­ments, risks tak­en, and wealth assumed. XP is spent to improve skills and buy virtues.

Gaining XP

XP must be earned.

The Book­keep­er will award XP befit­ting your accom­plish­ments at the end of every ses­sion:

  • Lit­tle to no progress towards a goal earns 15 XP
  • Progress towards a goal earns you 30 XP. Kill mon­sters. Uncov­er a clue. Get some mon­ey.
  • If you suc­ceed at a mod­er­ate objec­tive, earn 60 XP. Kill a mini­boss. Get lots of loot.
  • Suc­ceed­ing in a major goal gets you 120 XP. Clear a dun­geon floor. Fin­ish a ven­ture.

To gain XP for an accom­plish­ment, you must direct­ly par­tic­i­pate in it. Usu­al­ly, the entire gang will get the total, but if some­one sits out a big risk or plan, the Book­keep­er may award them less.

Bonus XP sources (dis­tress, sat­is­fy­ing urges, etc.) are added to the whole.

PRACTICE

To improve or learn a skill, you must have prac­ticed it. Prac­tice is gained by using a skill.

Some skills are eas­i­er to prac­tice by their nature. It is pos­si­ble to gain prac­tice in a skill even if you do not have lev­els in it.

Levelup

Lev­elup once per ses­sion dur­ing a meal or night’s sleep.

Dur­ing lev­elup, buy 2 dif­fer­ent skill lev­els or buy 1 skill lev­el and 1 virtue / issue.

To improve a prac­ticed skill by 1 lev­el, spend XP equal to 10 times the lev­el you wish to attain. For instance, it takes 30 XP to raise a skill from lev­el 2 to lev­el 3 and 10 XP to attain lev­el 1 from 0.

You may not improve the same skill twice in a lev­elup.

After lev­elup, your prac­tice resets in all skills.

Remem­ber: 1 lev­elup per ses­sion; 2 heals per day. Since you lev­elup at meals or sleep, you’ll often heal and lev­elup con­cur­rent­ly.

TEACHING

To be taught a skill, you must access a knowl­edge­able repos­i­to­ry of it, be it a book or a char­ac­ter skilled in it and Instruc­tion.

Prac­tice may be gained from a teacher by an hour-long les­son. To teach anoth­er char­ac­ter, the teacher must for­go their own learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty dur­ing a lunch or night’s sleep and use an hour of time. You may gain prac­tice from a teacher so long as their skill lev­el is supe­ri­or to your own. Teach­ers are lim­it­ed, how­ev­er, as they may not bestow prac­tice in a skill unless their Instruc­tion lev­el + 2 exceeds your lev­el in said skill.

Prac­tice may be gained from books via an hour of read­ing. Books capa­ble of bestow­ing prac­tice have a skill lev­el. You may gain prac­tice from a book so long as the book’s skill lev­el is supe­ri­or to your own.

Stabling

As ambi­tions grow, so too will your com­pa­ny.

When your first char­ac­ter attains 1000 total XP, you can opt to begin a sec­ond char­ac­ter, thus engen­der­ing a sta­ble

A sta­ble of char­ac­ters comes with sev­er­al con­di­tions: 

  • You may only con­trol 1 char­ac­ter at a time. You must choose which char­ac­ter to con­trol at the start of each ses­sion. Only this char­ac­ter may receive XP at end of ses­sion.  
  • Inac­tive, “sta­bled” char­ac­ters must pos­sess or be pro­vid­ed at least one shilling per day of inac­tiv­i­ty to afford food and hous­ing. Advance arrange­ments, such as employ­ment, pre­paid rent, or owned hous­ing may waive this fee.

Inac­tive char­ac­ters may heal once per day, and receive stitch­es from the lifestyle they are pay­ing for. 

If an inac­tive char­ac­ter runs out of mon­ey or can­not be pro­vid­ed more,  they will face des­ti­tu­tion, suf­fer­ing a ran­dom theft or minor wound each day, all while accru­ing Hunger stress.


The fol­low­ing are spe­cial char­ac­ter pro­gres­sion rules.

trait capacity

Earn +2 max­i­mum trait capac­i­ty every 12 ses­sions sur­vived, allow­ing you more virtues and/or issues.

Urges

The Book­keep­er may allow you an urge. Choose from the list of sug­ges­tions or make it up. Sat­is­fy­ing an urge earns you 40 XP. Urges should not be repeat­ed.

sug­gest­ed urges

  • Per­son­al­ly haul more than £50 in ancient gold from a tomb or ven­ture site (see gold fever.)
  • Per­son­al­ly kill a mon­ster larg­er than you.
  • Reach 3 or more malus this ses­sion.
  • Eat a meal made with a sin­ful or for­bid­den ingre­di­ent.
  • Gain 3 or more com­fort at a broth­el, bar, or smoke par­lor.
  • Dou­ble your mon­ey in one ses­sion.
  • Spend your last XP point on a mor­bid skill lev­el.
  • Defeat a spe­cif­ic foe/challenge that hum­bled you in the past.
  • Go a week with­out rolling a sin­gle skill.
  • Per­son­al­ly com­plete your gang’s cur­rent objec­tive.
  • Bring low a crea­ture with rope, either by tying them up or stun­ning them.
  • Suf­fer sever­i­ty-3 wound in front­line com­bat.
  • Steal part of or all of a human body. It must have val­ue. Includes knuck­le­bones, pla­galiths, corpse wax, and mum­mies.
  • Take some­one unawares, sur­prise them, or exploit their weak­ness.
  • Build or repair an item of wood­en armor.
  • Escape a tight place.
  • Assist in an Avethan rit­u­al or rite.
  • Restore an air of pro­pri­ety and civil­i­ty fol­low­ing bloody vio­lence.
  • Receive pay­ment for mason­ry-relat­ed work or vio­lence.
  • Pho­to­graph a sub­ject that caused you dis­tress.
  • A com­pan­ion uses a reac­tion bonus you pro­vid­ed.
  • Severe­ly injure some­one who threat­ened your com­pan­ion.
  • Quick­draw some­one.
  • Encounter some­thing from fairy­tales (a cas­tle, a ser­pent, a fairy, etc.)
  • Gain access to some­where you’re not sup­posed to be.
  • Spite the Oth­er in some way (kill a sprig­gan, nail a horse­shoe to a tree, etc.)
  • Plan and exe­cute a strat­a­gem or tac­tic.
  • Steal from a tar­get larg­er than you.
  • Bring down a tree or a large mon­ster.
  • Recov­er from weary stress.
  • Test a fringe med­ical the­o­ry on an ally.
  • Get a reward for vio­lent or carcer­al labor.
  • Pro­duce or sell a brew or dis­til­late.
  • Find and eat an unusu­al ingre­di­ent.
  • Mate­ri­al­ly harm some­one’s wealth or rep­u­ta­tion.
  • Ful­ly stop an attack with your shield or portable cov­er.
  • Eat meat or pro­duce poached from pri­vate, pro­tect­ed, or for­bid­den land.
  • Eat a pix­ie or bug.
  • Hear a secret not meant for you.
  • Scalp or skin an intel­li­gent crea­ture.
  • Eat quadru­ple the usu­al food at a meal
  • Feed a square meal to at least 1 Avethan.
  • Suc­ceed a ter­ror roll.
  • Obtain or bestow a new scar.
  • Keep a per­pet­u­al stew going for 3 ses­sions.
  • Pack and trans­port at least 10 bur­den of goods or wealth to a ven­ture site or to sale.
  • Open some­thing ancient, or at least antique.
  • Feed your com­pan­ions a meal fried in fat.
  • Cause an ally to suc­ceed a roll with your Play skill.
  • Recov­er from 3 or more dis­tress.
  • Cause a roll to suc­ceed with a faith point.
  • Orches­trate the bur­ial of a human body.